Well, I have just found something interesting while reading through Pro Apache 3rd edition, by Peter Wainwright. Apparently, using mod_perl, you can use the full power of the pearl interpreter INSIDE httpd.conf.
Quote from the book page 449: "Embedded Perl appears in Apache's configuration inside a <Perl>...</Perl> container, also known as a Perl section. Anything inside this container is executed by mod_perl when Apache starts. You specify configuration directives simply by assigning a package variable of the same name. For example; <Perl> $ServerAdmin="[EMAIL PROTECTED]"; </Perl> In Perl, this is a basic assignment of a string to a scalar variable. In a Perl section, it becomes a configuration directive because the variable corresponds to the name of a configuration directive understood by Apache." Peter Wainwright also provides some very capable examples in his book, using this technique. One example of this starts with: ... #Now write the Perl script and embed it into httpd.conf in # a <Perl> container <Perl> # generate virtual hosts on the fly with Perl ... ... ... # back to httpd.conf </Perl> # ...rest of httpd.conf... and, <Perl> # note the following line calls an external perl interpreter #!/usr/bin/perl -w # rest of Perl script - embedded in htpd.conf # back to httpd.conf <Perl> #rest of httpd.conf file He concludes this section of the chapter by stating, "Of course you could use any scripting language to create a configuration file this way because Apache no longer needs to know how to interpret it (ie the script) itself." So, in theory (please see disclaimer below - LOL) it should be possible to use an external php interpreter to generate httpd.conf files and configuration directives this way, by embedding the call to the php interpreter into a <Perl>...</Perl> section. The above was extracted from the full sample chapter 7, 'Hosting more than one website', available for download from Apress's website, at: http://www.apress.com/book/supplementDownload.html?bID=275&sID=2134 The download link is not underlined, and is the text 'Download Sample Chapter' which just looks like a sub-heading to me. Pro Apache, Third Edition Download Sample Chapter <-- This is an excellent book, packed with practical explanations of how to master Apache. I have struggled with the online documentation for years. I cannot recommend this book highly enough! HTH Keith In theory, theory and practice are the same; In practice they are not. On Thu, 19 Jan 2006 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > To: users@httpd.apache.org > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Using environment variable in httpd.conf > > > Thanks for the info Joshua. > > I was just curious to know if it was possible to set > variables in httpd.conf . Probably won't need to > use such a feature at the moment. > > Keith > > > In theory, theory and practice are the same; > In practice they are not. > > On Thu, 19 Jan 2006, Joshua Slive wrote: > > > To: users@httpd.apache.org > > From: Joshua Slive <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Subject: Re: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Using environment variable in httpd.conf > > > > On 1/19/06, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > > Well Tom, I'm using apache 2.0.50 under SuSE 9.2 pro and > > > just added the following to httpd.conf, after my LoadModule statements: > > > > > > SetEnv ErrLogPath /var/log/apache2/error_log > > > ErrorLog ${ErrLogPath} > > > LogLevel debug > > > > > > All this does for my setup is create an error_log file under > > > /srv/www/ called ${ErrLogPath}. > > > > > > Am I missing something? > > > > The undocumented env-variable-in-config-file feature looks at > > variables in the server environment at time of startup. SetEnv > > doesn't actually make real environment variables until a cgi script is > > launched. See: > > http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/env.html > > > > What you want sounds more like the features provided by mod_macro. > > See http://modules.apache.org/. > > > > But the standard advice in cases like this is: httpd.conf is not a > > programming language, it is a config file. If you need more advanced > > features, then use your favorite preprocess (m4, etc) to generate your > > config files. > > > > Joshua. --------------------------------------------------------------------- The official User-To-User support forum of the Apache HTTP Server Project. See <URL:http://httpd.apache.org/userslist.html> for more info. To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] " from the digest: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
